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In this November 30, 2013 photo, 17-year-old professional freeskier Torin Yater-Wallace gives the thumbs-down sign from his hospital bed at St. Anthony Summit Medical Center in Frisco, Colorado, while recovering from surgery for a traumatic pneumothorax (an accumulation of air in the pleural cavity resulting from blunt or penetrating chest injury and causing lung collapse) that he suffered after a physical therapist punctured his right lung with an acupuncture needle. (Photo: @TorinWallace)

Privacy Policy

The Privacy Policy was updated on September 1, 2017.

This Privacy Policy applies to this website (the “Site”) operated by the National Center for Acupuncture Safety and Integrity (“NCASI”). You are advised to consult the “Privacy Policy” link on the Site each time you visit the Site. Your continued use of the Site constitutes your agreement to the Privacy Policy, as it may be amended from time to time.

1. Information We Collect.

We may collect your personal information when you submit it to the Site. Upon receiving your personal information, we automatically create a user profile linked to that personal information. If the same personal information is provided in connection with future donations, actions, or activities on the Site, such actions will be added to that user profile. As described below, you may review and update such information at any time. The following list includes the most common ways that you may provide your personal information to us directly:

Registration. We do not ask that you register or enter any personal information to access or use most areas of the Site. However, you may choose to subscribe to certain newsletters or bulletins distributed by NCASI, or to join NCASI’s mailing list. To do so, you may be required to enter certain personal information, including your name and email address. You can review and update information we have on record for you by emailing membership@acupuncturesafety.org.

Online Activism. To send a message from our online action center to government officials and other decision-makers, you are required to identify yourself by name, address, email address, phone number, or other personal information. NCASI includes this information when we send your message. This is necessary for your message to be effective, and in the case of many government officials, it is required. NCASI may also use this personal information to contact you with the latest alerts and progress reports. Please note that comments sent to federal agencies may be made available publicly, often via the web, and will sometimes include the full name and address of the person(s) submitting the comments.

Mobile Messaging. NCASI may also ask for your mobile number so that you can be kept up to date on breaking news and the latest actions. You can opt-out at any time by emailing membership@acupuncturesafety.org or replying to a text message with STOP.

Postcards and “Tell Your Friends” Pages. To forward an article, postcard, or action alert, you may be required to enter your name, email address, and the email address(es) of your intended recipient. NCASI includes your name and email address when we send your message.

Contests. If we run a contest on the Site, it will be accompanied by a set of rules. The rules for each contest will specify how the information gathered from you for entry will be used and disclosed, if it is different from as described in this Privacy Policy. In conjunction with your entry in such contest, personal information will be collected only if you voluntarily submit it.

Donations and Gifts; Secure Transactions. In order to make a donation or a “Gift” (i.e., a donation in someone else’s name) through the Site, you will be required to input certain personal information about yourself and, in the case of a Gift being sent through an e-card, the person for whom the gift is made. NCASI will use your personal information and the gift recipient’s personal information that you provide for the sole purpose of fulfilling the Gift purchase, in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy. By submitting personal information about others, you hereby represent and warrant that you have full authority to do so.

When you donate to NCASI via the Site, your donation information (i.e., your name, address, donation amount, last four digits of your credit card, expiration date of your credit card, and the name and email address of the recipient, if applicable) is encrypted and transmitted via a secure connection. NCASI uses your credit card information only for the purpose of processing your donation. We will not disclose this information except as necessary to process your donation or as required by law, and we do not store it once your donation has been processed.

Dry Needling Adverse Event Reporting System (DNAERS). In order to make a report through the Site, you will be required to input certain personal information about yourself and, if you are not the patient, the patient. NCASI will use your personal information and, if you are not the patient, the patient’s personal information that you provide for the sole purpose of fulfilling our cause, in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy. By submitting personal information about others, you hereby represent and warrant that you have full authority to do so.

Communications between you and NCASI. As described in this Privacy Policy, you may contact NCASI or subscribe to newsletters and other mailings, and NCASI may respond to your inquiries or request for mailings. Additionally, when you provide NCASI with your email address and mailing address, we may contact you to ask you to become a member of NCASI. You can choose not to receive such requests by contacting our membership department at membership@acupuncturesafety.org. If you have opted to receive any of our publications by email, you are able at any time to unsubscribe by clicking a link that appears in the email publication itself or by contacting our membership department at membership@acupuncturesafety.org.

2. Other Information We Collect.

Cookies; Tracking Mechanisms. Sometimes we collect information about you without your submitting it. For example, NCASI uses cookies to track user patterns on the Site. These cookies help NCASI understand what parts of the Site are most interesting to our users. The information in the cookie includes a user’s IP address and is transmitted to and stored by Squarespace. You may at any time delete any cookies by using the relevant option of your Internet or mobile browser or by deleting the cookies on your hard drive or mobile device.

NCASI tracks open rates, click-throughs and the IP address of Site users to measure the effectiveness of our campaigns and discourage fraudulent uses.

“Web beacons” are communications with a server performed when retrieving the content of a webpage, and enable us to track the number and timing of visitors to certain sections of the Site. We may employ web beacons to help us compile aggregated statistics regarding the operations of the Site. We prohibit web beacons on our Site from being used by third parties to collect or access your personal information.

Using the settings of your Internet or mobile browser, you can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. Consult your browser Help menu or the vendor documentation for your specific software to learn the correct way to modify your cookies. If you choose to turn off cookies, you may not have access to many features that make your browsing of our Site smoother, and some of our services may not function properly. If you continue to use our Site without changing your settings, you consent to our use of cookies and other tools on the Site.

If you do not want us to collect information about your geographic location, you must disable the technology that transmits this information.

3. Use/Sharing of Your Information.

We do not sell, rent, or exchange any personal information that you provide to us through the Site. NCASI does not disclose your personal information to any third parties, except (i) to manage our website and database with the help of service providers (who are obligated to maintain its confidentiality), (ii) as part of our normal business operations, (iii) to send you communications about your interactions with us or about features of the Site, including any future changes to this Privacy Policy, or (iv) as required by law or requested by governmental or law enforcement authorities, subpoena, court order or discovery request, or when we otherwise believe in good faith that such disclosure is appropriate to enforce our Terms of Service or in connection with any activity that may violate the law or the rights of others, threaten the safety or security of any person or property (including the Site) or expose us to liability.

4. Employment.

In connection with seeking employment or a volunteer position with NCASI, you may decide to submit, through our Site or otherwise, personal information (including your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and any other personal information requested on our online and offline forms, as well as an electronic or paper copy of your resume/CV). All information entered into any online or offline forms related to employment or volunteering is strictly private, and will be viewed by NCASI only to assess your qualifications as an employee or volunteer for NCASI.

5. Other Websites.

This Privacy Policy applies only to the Site. If you visit any unaffiliated website linked to the Site (for example, Twitter, Facebook or other social media sites), you are subject to that entity’s own privacy policies, which we do not control or monitor. You should review the privacy policies of all third-party websites before you visit them. NCASI has not reviewed all of the sites linked to this Site and it makes no representations or warranties as to the privacy practices, functioning or content of any sites linked to this Site.

6. International Use.

This Privacy Policy is intended to meet the laws and regulations of the United States, and despite the global nature of the Internet, NCASI makes no claims that the Site is appropriate or may be viewed or used outside the United States. Furthermore, our databases are located in the United States. By sending us your data, you consent to its transfer to and storage within the United States. Irrespective of the country in which you reside or from which you access the Site, you authorize NCASI to use your personal information in the United States and any other country where NCASI operates. Access to the Site from countries or territories where such access is illegal or contrary to applicable rules or regulations is prohibited. Those who access the Site from outside the United States do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, rules, and regulations.

7. Children’s Privacy.

The Site is not targeted toward, and we do not seek or desire to collect information from, children under the age of 13. Therefore, we will not knowingly request information from persons under such age. Please do not provide any personal information to us for any reason unless you are at least 13 years of age, and please caution your children not to do so. If we become aware that we have collected any personal information from children under 13, we will promptly use commercially reasonable efforts to delete such information from our databases. Consistent with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, if a child under 13 has provided personal information to us through the Site without verifiable parental consent, a parent or guardian may inform us at webmaster@acupuncturesafety.org, and we will use commercially reasonable efforts to delete such information, subject to applicable law and this Privacy Policy.

8. California Privacy Rights.

NCASI does not track its users over time and across third party websites to provide targeted advertising and therefore does not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. However, some third party sites do keep track of your browsing activities when they serve you content, which enables them to tailor what they present to you. If you are visiting such sites, certain web browsers allow you to set the DNT signal on your browser so that third parties (particularly advertisers) know that you do not want to be tracked. You should consult your web browser’s “help” feature for instructions on how to set the DNT signal.

Third parties that have content embedded on NCASI’s websites such as a social feature may set cookies on a user’s browser and/or obtain information about the fact that a web browser visited the Site from a certain IP address. NCASI does not control or monitor such practices. You should contact such third parties directly to opt out.

9. Notice Procedures.

Please send all Privacy Policy-related communications to webmaster@acupuncturesafety.org. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you agree to receive all legally required notices regarding this Privacy Policy or any privacy or security breaches relating to the Site at the email address you use to contact the Site.

10. Governing Law.

You agree that this Privacy Policy and your use of this Site shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the State of Oregon. Any dispute relating to this Privacy Policy and your use of this Site shall be resolved solely in the state or federal courts located in Portland, Oregon.

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